Most marketers today solely about Google or Facebook’s algorithms when refining their content. However, they often miss the Human aspect when thinking about content. Marketers talk about being more human, yet when it comes to reporting, creating content, or optimizing their website, they only talk about how to rank higher or outsmart algorithms.
Sadly, marketers are relying too much on gaming bots to make their products rank higher, so much so that they’ve lost the human aspect of whom they are marketing to. What if we as marketers simply cared more about how people use our products, How people find our products, and obsessed over the Friction in the products that customers are currently using? If we did, the Marketing would take care of itself.
Understandably, there is User Experience (UX) testing for websites, but many agencies look at this from the perspective of grouping all the data points together in order to make the experience better. Typically, a designer isn’t involved in the process in the user experience process. We as Marketers are sometimes asked about the Data to do too much and letting it guide every decision that is made.
Instead, we ask marketers should ask ourselves – What is the customer actually asking when they are searching for something? For instance, if the user is a mom looking for a place to eat while on vacation – are they actually asking for the best places to eat, or are they actually wanting their food problem to be solved? Do they really just want to know where is a restaurant that is kid-friendly? And is it fast/good/clean/healthy for their family? Maybe in that order.
What I would recommend that you do as a marketer is try to figure out what are customers actually asking and how can you take your efforts to the next level to provide them a solution. Sometimes this is difficult for the Data-Centric Marketer because this takes reflection and it takes empathy – which if you don’t have an abnormal amount of empathy, you’re likely more of a data-centric marketer and not a brand marketer. Fortunately for you data marketers, this is a muscle that you can train. Think more about why someone would buy your product. Why they would choose you over someone else? What are you actually giving your customers? How are you making them raise their status, feel more confident, or giving them a break from their routine?
Example: Does the customer actually want coffee during the workday? Or do they want a break from their daily tasks? Do they actually care about this hike that you recommended as a travel agent or do they simply want to brag about how cool their life is to their friends (probably on Instagram)? Sometimes it’s just about raising their status to their peers.
As a Marketer, you should be constantly thinking about these questions. If you can figure out more about what the customer is actually wanting, you’ll set yourself up for a better customer and more human experience.
The more human we can think as Marketers, the more brand loyal and happier our customers will be. So stop optimizing for search engines and start optimizing for Human Experiences – Human Experience Optimization.
